Greenland’s Early Sunrise

The latest thing going around the internet today is that the Sun rose on in a small burg called Ilulissat in Greenland on January 11th. Ilulissat is north of the arctic circle so it experiences 24 hours of darkness for several weeks. Nothing unusual there.

The first thing to do is to verify the claims is true. I checked out the NOAA Sunrise/Sunset calculator (after finding what I think is the lat/long of Ilulissat. There are lots of places with similar names in Greenland!) and the US Naval Observatory. Sure enough, January 12th, no sunrise. January 13th, there is a sunrise and a very short day. Okay, NOAA and USNO agree with the prediction and they are pretty reputable in such matters.

The next thing is to verify the observation. This part is much trickier. The story has gone viral on the web. The best I can tell, it started with a story in the Daily Mail. Read it and you can see the details of who made the observations and where are pretty sketchy…okay, non-existant. No mention of the time of the observation, how long the Sun stayed up, location of observation, azimuth of the Sun (I don’t consider the stock photo they used in the story to have any bearing on anything) or who made the observation. A photo of the sunrise with an identifiable landmark would have been REALLY useful!

Now on to the possible why (assuming it really happened).

First, let’s get rid of all the crackpot theories. Earth’s rotational axis has not changed. Astronomers use telescopes every night and measure the positions of stars down to tenths of an arc second (or finer) resolution every night. If something had happened like that, everyone around here would be totally whigged out about now, yet calm prevails at observatories around the world. This is not related to the bird deaths, 2012 non-sense, magnetic pole shifting, etc.

The idea that is getting the most play and traction is that global warming is to blame. Greenland has been well above average this year by about 3 degrees Celsius. The running idea is that the glaciers are melting and the horizon is lower. A lower horizon lets the Sun peak above it a little earlier. If this is the case, surveying crews should be able to make some measurements and confirm or deny this rather quickly.

I decided to play around a little bit and see what I could find out. Checking out the NOAA Solar Position Calculator , I found the center of the Sun was only 0.68 degrees below the horizon at local noon. Since the Sun has a radius of about .27 degrees, the center of the Sun was only .41 degrees below the horizon. Converting to radians gives an angle of about .007 radians. So now I have a pretty good idea of the the angle the tip of the glaciers must have descended to let the sun rise two days early.

But how many meters of melting would have to take place? The math is easy, but knowing the numbers to use is difficult. The answer depends very much on how far away these glaciers are located. Looking at Google Earth and Google maps is of limited utility since you I would need to know exactly where they were looking!

However, I can still make some general calculations here. Let’s say the horizon is 10,000meters away (about six miles). The height the glaciers must have lost is simply the angle times the distance to the mountains (using the small angle approximation here and the angle is small enough that works pretty well) or 10,000*.007 = 70 meters or about 220 feet! Of course, if the glacier is much closer, the amount of ice lost could be much smaller. If you were 1000 meters away, it would only need to lose 7 meters (about 22 feet) off the top. However, without information on exactly where the observation was made, there’s not much you can say about it (although that hasn’t stopped any of the whackos out there!)

Now I should also point out that it could also be due to the ground rising. As glaciers melt, the ground will rise as there is less weight on it. I doubt this could rise enough in one year to create the effect by itself, but if the glaciers fell a little and the ground rose you might be in business.

However there are other explanations. Accuweather proposed an unusual concentration of methane in the atmosphere may have changed the index of refraction of the atmosphere at let the Sun be visible a couple of days early. I find this implausible as the amount of methane needed to do this would be huge! Volcanic eruptions can release enough pollutants into the atmosphere to give colorful sunsets, but even they do not change the atmosphere enough to affect the time of sunsets!

Much more likely is an atmospheric phenomena. A certain rare but understood shape of ice crystal (called a pyramidilly-terminated hexagonal prism for those following along at home) can produce a halo with a radius of 4 degrees. This halo would extend a little above the horizon giving the illusion of a sunrise. I think it is fairly safe to say that Greenland is cold enough for atmospheric ice crystals to form at this time of year. These are pretty rare but then again this doesn’t happen every year! Again, a good picture of this would be amazingly useful.

Although I need more info, I would put my money on the small halo. The amount of ice that would have to fall off the top of a glacier is pretty large and a fall of that size probably would have been noticed so let’s see some evidence of it (I know this just happened and in a pretty remote place, so I am willing to give them a little time to get the info here).

As regular readers know, I love photographing sunsets…maybe someone will fund me to go to Greenland next January and take some pics to get to the bottom of this!

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[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Shel West, Rob Sparks. Rob Sparks said: The sun rose two days earlier than it was supposed to in Greenland…is this the end of the world? Not likely. http://bit.ly/glHBDE […]

I live on Greenland, teach physics in a high scool. The early sunrise was reported on the national government television news on the 11th, the only tvchannel uphere. Its not a viral.
here is the webpage with the original picture:http://knr.gl/index.php?id=183&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=63716&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=143&cHash=f69d0f034b
I have found coordinates for google maps for you:
69.199976,-51.132116
I believe this is the exact point the picture was taken from, a hilltop south of town where everybody goes to sing songs, welcoming the sun on the 13th of january. The reason you cant find ilulissat on google is because its registered under the danish colonial name: Jacobshavn.
However be carefull when looking at the pics on google earth/maps cos the glacier(in-land-ice) has retreated a lot since those satellite pics where taken. I found a map on this website that is a bit more up to date:http://www.33igc.org/coco/entrypage.aspx?t=programme&containerid=11169&parentid=11162&objectid=10883&guid=1&lnodeid=1&pageid=5026
The mountains seen on the famous picture are rock-formations on the other side of the fjord.
The sun rises almost due south. There are no glaciers in the way, at most there will be a few floating icebergs on the fjord. So the theory about shrinking glaciers falls.
I dont think the ground is rising soo much that it could cause the change. One of the places where the ground lifts the most because of a melted glacier is around the great lakes in north America. Here the lift is about 2,5 mm a year. So if you stand on your toes it would have a greater effect.

On the 13th when about 1000 people where gathered to sing the sun welcome (everyone that can walk out there from the town!), it was half an hour late!! Nearly everybody had gone home but at 13.35 it came up over the horizon. It was not seen on the 12th.
Thats gotta play a little trick on you mind if you are from a nation of natives where very few even get a high school education. Especially if the sun has come up there at the same time for countless generations.
I wish i could explain it with all my education..
Illulissat has been populated for more than 4000 years.
here is a picture from the 13th:http://sermitsiaq.ag/indland/article70720.ece
from the same place.
I dont buy your theory on ice crystals since there should be fewer of them in the atmosphere as the temperature rises. If ice crystals would be the reason it would have been seen before.
A spike of methane seems more likely to me, since the permafrost meting over Russias tundras emits a lot of that into the atmosphere but i would very much like a better explanation than that..
Look forward to solving this mystery.. 😉

I don’t understand why you scientific minds are dismissing the pole shift theory. There was a report just a few days ago, i forgot which airport, but they had to repaint the numbers on the runways because pilots could get confused since their compasses weren’t reading true north or south. Wouldn’t this explain the early sunrise – if the north pole was moving toward Russia so Greenland was moving further south (towards the equator) where the sunrises happen earlier?

Jimmy, you are making the common mistake of confusing the Earth’s geographic north pole with its magnetic north pole which are not in the same location.

Earth’s geographic north pole is points toward the star Polaris right now. The geographic pole is what would have to shift to account for an earlier sunrise. Mark (#12) correctly points out that if this happened, programs that make predictions about ISS passes would be off. The Mayall 4 meter telescope at Kitt Peak is has a polar mount that points to the celestial north pole. If Earth’s geographic north pole shifted, it would be immediately apparent in the 4 meter telescopes pointing ability. This just hasn’t happened.

Earth’s magnetic north pole is shifting. The airport you are referring to is Tampa International Airport where they repainted one runway to reflect that fact that Eart’s magnetic north pole is moving. Runways are named according to compass headings based on Earth’s magnetic north pole (which is moving) and not on its geographic north pole (which is not).

Comment by halfastro |
January 24, 2011

hey tommy I would really like to ask you a few questions, can you email me? cdotwallace @ gmail

The Mail copied the report pretty well word for word from the Austrian newspaper the Kurier. All other reports, blogs, tweets and forums feed off this single media based source. So instead of everyone running off speculating wildly about possible causes there really is a fundamental issue as to whether it actually happened in the first place!

Thanks Tommy. You gave a lot more useful information than any of the news sites I could find!

After my post, I started wondering if it was seen on the 12th and you were able to answer that question.

The GPS coordinates I found were close to what you say, so I was looking near (but not exactly) at the right place…I was just in a different part of town, but at least the right town.

Ice crystals can form in the upper atmosphere even when it is warm at the ground. A few years ago we had a full Sun halo in the summer in Tucson when it was over 100F on the ground yet it was still cold enough in the upper atmosphere for plenty of ice crystals to form. I could even dig up some pics I took of it and find the exact date.

And when I said it went viral, that is an expression meaning the story spread across the internet quickly. Viral does not mean it is true/false/good/bad, just that it spread fast (which this did).

[…] behavior on the part of the sun. But, with some help from a physics teacher in Greenland, The Half-Astrophysicist (AKA Rob Sparks, National Optical Astronomy Observatory) puts a lid on some of the wild speculation […]

I have been talking to friends and colleagues about these sun phenomenons: It seems that this last decade the sun has been missing the calender times more than once.
My friend and colleague Nuka´s parents house, is in the dark about a month because of the mountains. Her dad keeps a diary on the sun. And apparently there has been irregularities this last decade.
I will try and get hold of the data, and I have been in contact with the Danish Meteorological Institute, asking them for data and explanations. They should know.
I will report back..

[…] is no ice to melt. There have been a few theories on the “inexplicable” phenomenon. The simplest one by far, is the Novaya Zemlja Effect (h/t Fabrizio). Perhaps, it should go without saying: The […]

Thanks for the update Tommy. Keep ’em coming. As frequently happens in the media, there has been one story with very little follow up.

I see a lot of incoming links and referrals from websites that question global warming. Just to be clear, I am not in that camp. I have read quite a bit and talked to quite a few researchers and accept the current scientific consensus on human caused global warming. However, as an astronomer who also dabbles in atmospheric optics, I see other more likely explanations for this early sunrise.

Astrophotographer Thierry Legault takes pictures of the ISS passing in front of the Sun and Moon. I believe he uses a software program to calculate when the ISS will pass in front of the Sun or Moon from a ground location perspective. If the Earth’s axis had tilted–or if the Earth’s crust had shifted around its core–I don’t believe those programs would work any more because the surface of the Earth would change its alignment with the Moon and Sun. I’m not an astrophysicst, full or half, but I think this is indirect evidence that the Sun/Greenland issue is probably an atmospheric, mirage-like effect.

I got an answer from the Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen university.
It is an atmospheric phenomenon known as inversion: When temperature is lower at the surface than it is higher up in the atmosphere, light is bend so it looks like the sun is coming up before it really is.
Two days later the opposite thing happened and the sun came up “to late”.
The reason why we dont see this things that often at lover latitudes is simply that the amount of atmosphere the sunlight must pass through is much longer up north. And inversion occurs much more frequently uphere.
Global warming has got nothing to do with it. And the inversion has happened before and that is why the sun seems to behave irregularly up here.

“A week before its scheduled reappearance in Barrow on Sunday after two months of Arctic night, the sun appeared to rise above the horizon for a time, and photos at The Arctic Sounder seem to confirm it. But Dave Anderson of the National Weather Service office in Barrow explained it was all an illusion: A layer of cold air along the ground acted like a lens or mirror, bending light over the horizon so that it seemed the sun had risen.”

Hi,
I’m a student of scientific journalism in Paris 7 university and I’m really struggling to find some experts who would comment on this, especially the methane story. Could you possibly put me in contact with Tommy B? I’d love to contact the person in Niels Bohr Institute who answered him for some “official” comments.
thanks a lot,
Luisa

The Niels Bohr Institute has a website that you can go to to get questions answered.
Translated its called “ask about physics”.http://www.nbi.ku.dk/spoerg_om_fysik/
and the email is: spoerg.om.fysik@nbi.dk
then you will get hold off a professor called Malte Olsen, who can then direct you on if he cant answer himself.
Inversion is a normal phenomena in the arctic areas. It is not uncommon to see a boat or an iceberg on the horizon that has been inverted. It can be confusing to see a boat upside down on the horizon but it is common. An inverted sun, looks the same as a “normal sun” of course.
What bothers me is the fact that the sun got up half an hour late on the 13th where it was supposed to come up.
NBI explains that it is due to the same phenomena: There is no inversion but in any case the rays from the sun are bent through our atmosphere. It is hard for me to understand why on that day it was then bent more than it normally would..
I hope you will find your answers..

Uh its polar shift… The Earth’s rotation is distorted because of galactic alignment. It will be in direct connection with Earth on Dec. 21st 2012. This is when all things unconceivable will begin. This phenomenon are happening all over the World currently. Birds dieing because of the methane gas being released by the Earth’s core. Its preparing for a full phledged tilt. The Earth will cease to spin for 5 days then resume. This is why the eathquakes and volcanoes are erupting all over the world currently. Its not hard people. You don’t need the scientist to figure it out. They don’t want to speculate about a sure thing that can kill half the World’s population. Most people will be in danger because they are not preparing for it. NASA knows what will happen and the governments are aware, but this would not be good for their economies, so they don’t want to create panic. Prepare!

I cannot account for the sun rising early in Greenland But I know for a fact that the sun is shining through my den window in a place it hasn’t before now. Iv’e heard other homeowners make the same comment.

I know I will never convince a few people who truly believe there is some sort of “pole shift” going on, but I’ll put this out there anyway.

You may have noticed my most recent blog entry is a picture of the Sun setting behind the 4 meter telescope on Kitt Peak. That photo was no accident or lucky shot. I have been planning it for weeks. I know the latitude and longitude of where I was taking photos and of Kitt Peak. I could calculate exactly where the Sun would set and which night to go out to get that shot. I calculated last night would be the best time to get the Suns setting behind the 4 meter telescope.

I went out and got that shot. If there was any strange “pole shift” going on, I would not have gotten it. I have done calculations and verified them. That’s why I think the pole shift is complete nonsense.

halfastro, where are you located? Greenland is pretty far north. Perhaps the effect is observed to an observably greater degree as you get closer to that part of the Earth when then bends around flat and back toward the other side?

Perhaps I am missing something here, but I find it strange that seemingly no one has suggested the two major astrophysical components of date shift. We all are aware of the Leap Year. In fact 2012 will be a leap year. We will be in a different place in our orbit around the sun on March 1st 2012, than we will be on March 1st, 2011. By extension, we we be in a different position every year, largely following a four year cycle. (century years are NOT Leap Years unless also divisible by 400). If the calendar is out of sync with the sun(ie earth’s orbit around same) we should not expect the sun to appear in the same position every similar Calendar day.
The second component is precession of the equinoxes, or a top like wobble that takes 26,000 years to complete, or 13,000 years from one side to the other, the period of maximum difference. I will have to leave the math, rotational analysis, etc to someone more current in all of this than my old brain.

Good question, Greg. The sites I used to get data all take these effects into account. I would have to do a bit of research to see if it might make sunrise drift in other years, but I am confident in the predictions for this year.

Again, the fact that the Sun did not rise on the 12th indicates that this was not related to leap year or procession. Once the Sun rises, it should rise every day from there on out until it disappears below the horizon the following winter.

Greg, it doesn’t seem very likely to be date shift because it’s suddenly two days early. Date shift would introduce gradual changes so that it might happen the prior day, or later day, but would not jump two days in one year.

Dear Halfastro & Rick…
Sorry If I seem to be challenging the reference sites: I was not. I am challenging the notion that the sun rises on the same calendar date every year. My limited knowledge makes me believe that this is unlikely, because earth will be at a different place in its orbit, following (essentially) a four year cycle. Since the rise above the horizon on the first day is so VERY small, I would expect that even a small change in position along earth’s orbit would result in a small, but significant change in the apparent position of the sun, relative to the horizon, resulting in a cyclic variation in the day of first sunrise.
We are clearly lacking anything approximating carefully documented annual observations. And as Rick points out a two day change would seem to be excessive.
It is of course possible that the variations in the four year cycle would not actually be significant enough to result in a variation of the date of first sunrise. I was hoping that further information, either based upon mathematical exploration, or information supplied by the aforementioned reference sites would establish whether the date of first sunrise is virtually constant. It is also very likely that the software Starry Night Pro would provide this information.
Thank you for your comments and I look forward to further discussion of this informative topic.

I don’t think the object being visible is necessary for it to be called a superior mirage. The term superior mirage is applied to ships that are beyond the horizon and you can’t see the ship, only the mirage. The Novaya Zemlya effect seems to be a term that applies to a specific type of superior mirage, but at some point this could get to be more about semantics than physics!

I might buy the change in the refraction index but I am sure the last day of sunlight is observed just as much as the new rising of the sun day is and there seems to be nothing unusual mentioned about that day. So I find it difficult to think that in a few weeks time, in the dead of winter, that glacial melt is the culprit.

ALOHA,I have been logging sunrise and sunset here in hawaii for 4 months.Sunearthtools.com sun position,will show you where the sun should be for your location ,take your compass and watch the sun rise and set, .At the equinoxe this fall here the sun rose 10 degrees to the north of east and set 10 degrees to the south of west,the equinoxe meaning equal was not equal!!.Yesterday the sun rose 13 degrees to the south,and set 40 degrees to the south,it should rise and set equal folks.It should rise and set @ 21 degrees not to exceed 25 degrees to the south or 25 degrees to the north,its that simple the axis is not 23.5

Aloha Rob,have you checked to see what day the sun rose in ilulissat this January 2012,I cant find any info on this matter anywhere.I find it odd that there is NO info, please contact me if you know,Regards Cowboy

Aloha Woidl,Mahalo for responding to my info.Check polaris the north star it should be @ your lattitude degree overhead ,and its not!!!Our lattitude is 22 degrees and polaris is approx. 32 degrees above the horizon,10 degrees off!!! Why is Rob not responding to his site,I certainly would respond with info one way or the other about this matter.There seems to be a total lack of documentation on the sunrise in ilulisssat Jan 2012!! Very Curious Indeed. Regards Cowboy

Comment by cowboy |
February 17, 2012

My most recent observing session was Wednesday night and Polaris was EXACTLY where it is supposed to be. As I have mentioned, I work for an observatory and most of our telescopes are on polar mounts that are permanently aligned with the north celestial pole. If there was any movement, we would know about it instantly. I can report that all the telescopes on Kitt Peak are working just fine. In addition, regular readers to the site know that I photograph sunset on a regular basis. Any change in Earth’s tilt would cause the position of sunset to change. I frequently calculate and predict the position of sunset from my photography spots to try and line up interesting shots. All my calculations match the landscape precisely (although weather sometimes gets in the way!)

I suspect the reason you have not heard about the sunrise in ilulisssat this year is that nothing unusual happened. The old adage is you don’t report all the planes that don’t crash.

Aloha Rob, Thank You for your comment.Tucson is 32.221 degrees latitude,so polaris should be above the horizon 32.221 degrees as well.Calculate it the old school way ,no droid phone gps star apps.Gps satellite data up there is up there,down here do the actual calculating.Dial it in and see for Yourself,then check and see if polaris is still north!Then check sunrise and sunset with a compasss and see for Yourself.Sunearthtools.com your latitude and you will see that today the sun should rise and set @13 degrees to the south of east west equally @ Tucson and if its incorrect down here then its worldwide .This is actually basic boyscout research thats being done here.I cant see how telescopes can be permanently mounted to the north celestial pole when we are wobbling due to precession taking place now.You stated that you calculate and predict the position of the sunset from your photo shots and your calculations match the landscape precisely,how does that state the True position @ sunset such as in degrees based on compass readings.Go to time and date .com , check out solar noon @ your location,and you will see the sun is not correct as overhead degrees.Beautiful photo shots of sunsets Rob.Do this research and see what you come up with ,let me know.Have you watched the moon rotate 270 degrees in 12 hours as I have the last 9 months.The moon should not rotate and Cornell University and many other experts dont know why!Back to Greenland you set this blog up about it I thought you would have done research lately to see if indeed the sun did rise early again there, since nobody funded you to go up there.Mahalo Cowboy

[…] is no ice to melt. There have been a few theories on the “inexplicable” phenomenon. The simplest one by far, is the Novaya Zemlja Effect (h/t Fabrizio). Perhaps, it should go without saying: The […]